Gove defends £55bn axe on school building by insisting 'sparkling' classrooms don't mean good education

Cuts: Education Secretary Michael Gove announces the axeing of the Building Schools for the Future programme

Good education does not require ‘sparkling, architect-designed’ classrooms, ministers insisted last night, as a £55billion school rebuilding scheme bore the brunt of spending cuts.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said 715 planned redevelopments would not go ahead, and 123 academy developments are to be reviewed.

The move came as the Treasury accused Labour of making a string of pre-election spending promises without any idea of how they would be funded.

Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander said £1.5billion of cuts across four departments are required this year because the last government made commitments based on fictional ‘ underspends’ in Whitehall.

Again, the education department was worst affected, with £1billion in extra savings to be found. This will include cancelling investment in school swimming pools and energy efficiency programmes.

Other departments hit are Business, Innovation and Skills, which will have to scale back by £265million, Communities and Local Government by £220million,

and the Home Office by £55million.

The cuts come on top of £10.5billion of Labour schemes cancelled or put on hold last month, and more than £6billion of Whitehall efficiency savings.

Mr Alexander told MPs: ‘The reality is that these unfunded spending promises should never have been made, because the money was never there to pay for them.

teaching, and high- quality teachers, than it is to invest in architect-designed landmark buildings.’

Labour started a scheme in 2004 to rebuild or refurbish all 3,500 secondary schools in England by 2023.

Mr Gove said that at 706 schools where work was ready to begin, it would go ahead.

But building work due at 715 secondaries at a later date will now be scrapped.

SLASH FOREIGN AID, SAY VOTERS

Voters want the Government to slash the burgeoning international aid budget before taking an axe to projects at home.

A poll showed that nearly half object to the government’s insistence on ringfencing foreign aid expenditure.

The Department for International Development is one of just two Whitehall departments to have its spending protected. The other is the Department of Health.

But foreign aid came third on the public’s hit list of areas that should face cuts, with NHS managers in first place and quangos ranked second.

DfiD has an annual budget of more than £7billion.

The coalition agreement between the Lib Dems and Tories pledges to increase spending each year - despite a recent internal review of the department finding that a quarter of its projects failed to meet their aims.

NAPPY CURRICULUM TO END?

Labour's compulsory ‘nappy curriculum’ for under-fives in childcare could be axed after just two years. Ministers will today launch a sweeping review of the pre-school education framework criticised for saddling teachers with hundreds of tick-box targets.

The inquiry will consider whether it should stay statutory for all nurseries and childminders. It may conclude that the framework, officially known as the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’, should be scaled back or made optional.

The EYFS proved one of Labour’s most controversial reforms, with critics claiming it forces children into formal learning too early and diverts teachers’ time towards filling in forms.

Some of its more controversial goals require involve introducing toddlers to screen-based technology. It dictates that children aged just 22 months should be able to turn on and operate televisions and computers.

Of these, 180 were supposed to be new builds, and 319 were due to be remodelled or refurbished.

The building scheme was responsible for about a third of the Department for Education’s capital spending, Mr Gove told MPs. But he added: ‘Throughout its life it has been

While 200 secondaries were meant to have been rebuilt by the end of 2008, only 35 had

been completed, with a further 13 refurbished.

But shadow education secretary Ed Balls described the announcement as a ‘black day for our country’s schools’.

Martin Johnson, deputy general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers,

said: ‘The coalition Government’s plans for free schools risk wasting money on buildings and school places when it should be spent on the schools which are most in need of refurbishment – those with leaking roofs, classrooms that freeze in winter and bake in summer, and where there are risks of exposure to asbestos.’

Ty Goddard, director of the British Council for School Environments, said: ‘The consequences of cutting the school building programme are significant.

‘We know decent school environments have an impact on pupil attainment, behaviour and wellbeing as well as teacher recruitment and retention.’